Skate parks are noisy

Skate parks are noisy. Even in Stutt­gart. Put a roof on it and the skate park at Prag­friedhof becomes an indoor skating rink – and the noise problem is fixed using archi­tec­tural solu­tions.

In the year 2009, the Stutt­gart muni­cipal corpo­ra­tion cons­tructed a skate park at Fried­hofstrasse in the nort­hern quar­ters of the city. The 1,300 m² large park is a part of a multi-gene­ra­tion park with an amateur foot­ball field, beach volley­ball field and a play area for small children. More than 3,000 m² of lawns and meadows are also a part of this park. Skaters loved the skate park and frequented it. However, it quickly became appa­rent that the inten­sive use of the area and the resul­ting noise disturbed the resi­dents. A ceme­tery and resi­den­tial towers are located in the vici­nity. Complaints were raised by the resi­dents and employees of resi­dent compa­nies. The requi­re­ments of noise protec­tion were not met.

A roof will resolve several problems

A roof cove­ring an area of 65 x 28 x 6.5 meters was installed to main­tain the faci­lity. The roof serves as a weather shield and reduces noise emis­sions to the exis­ting and planned resi­den­tial deve­lo­p­ment in the vici­nity. Curr­ently, the unheated hall is usable from eight in the morning to eight in the evening in any weather condi­tion.

The skating rink has:

• a steep curve
• two small hubbas
• three tiers
• two hand rails
• two ramps
• Manual Pad Flat Rail
• Hip and Bench
• Bank to Wall
• two Hubba Ledges
• a small Hip
• two Boome­rang Ledges
• a ledge
• a rail
• three tiered ledges
• a Bowl-Area.

The construction

The indoor skating hall at Prag­friedhof has a foun­da­tion made of conti­nuous strip footings along the length of the skating rink. 16 lami­nated timber trusses as rein­forced support frames at a distance of about 4.0 m span the 26.5 m wide hall. Leng­thwise the frames are connected only over the trape­zo­idal sheet shell and supported by the arches. This arran­ge­ment elimi­nates the need of secon­dary beams or rein­force­ments. The roof cover is made of bent aluminum-stan­ding seam profiles with mineral wool insu­la­tion under­neath it (around 120 mm) and a bitu­mi­nous mois­ture barrier to prevent conden­sa­tion forma­tion and over­hea­ting during summer. The front side has profiled glass sections (2‑layer) in the upper half. The trans­lu­cent profiled glass diffuses light.

Requirements fulfilled

The bottom half of the facade of the skating hall at Prag­fiedhof is fitted with trans­pa­rent glass sections so that one can look inside. Natural lighting through the openings on the skir­ting and skylight sections enable natural flow of light from bottom to top. Skylight sections are made of impact-rain proof venti­la­tion lamella. The profiled sheet metal roof is fitted with acou­stic perfo­ra­tions all around to reduce noise.

The sound insu­la­tion requi­re­ments of the surroun­ding struc­tures are met by imple­men­ting these struc­tural changes. Other specific measures such as addi­tional absorber surfaces take care of critical points. A strip light in the roof ridge, addi­tional skylights on the south-east side, floor-to-ceiling glass façade in the front and glazing along the track ensure that the hall is well lit when there is ample daylight.  On cloudy days and in the evening the skating hall at Prag­fiedhof is lit-up using spot­lights and lumi­n­aires.

Southern view

GROUND PLAN